Fortunately I write better than I sing

 

 

First voice lesson in three weeks and . . .

I’ve been singing to keep myself sane the last few weeks which doesn’t necessarily mean I’ve been either singing well or practising something to take to my voice teacher when she gets back from holiday.*  I went in today crying to be reset which has become a joke between us:  I get more and more tense and squeaky over the course of the week or, occasionally, weeks between lessons and I go less to work on new repertoire or polish up old than for her to find my restart button and press it.  If only it were that easy.  But after fifteen or twenty minutes of bizarre exercises—most of them at least involve some kind of vocal effort but quite a few of them are things like making curtain-opening gestures with my hands as I begin to produce a note, or walking backwards while I sing—I can start hearing my voice coming cautiously out of hiding.  Ready at a moment’s notice to dart back into its dark cavern, but . . . as the frelling years pass that I’ve been going to Nadia, I can begin to hear that my voice, such as the poor thing is, does have some individuality, some quality that makes it my voice rather than someone else’s.**  But I only ever hear this, and that sporadically, in lessons.  I go home again to my house(s), my piano, me directing traffic and . . . I might as well get on with learning all nineteen verses of the Battle Hymn of the Republic because in terms of music as opposed accompanying myself on a critter hurtle, it’s all over till next week.

Today was a more successful reset than sometimes.  I so want to be singing before I die of old age. . . .

So I thought I’d put on my professional hat for a few paragraphs and write about something I can do.  Even if I don’t write about how I do it very well.

When did you first start writing and feeling confident enough to show your writing to others and hope for publication?  I wonder what is the tipping point between people who dabble and enjoy writing but have no confidence that it is anything but drivel, and those who believe enough in their work and can shush the inner demons of doubt long enough to have others read her or his writing? 

This is one of those, didn’t I answer this in the FAQ—?  From my perspective I did, but from the letter-writer’s I probably didn’t.  So, Useless Non-Answer #1A coming up (again):  I don’t know.  It wasn’t really like that for me.  I’ve always told stories.  Sometimes I wrote them down.  Fairly early on I got into sort of a habit of trying to write them down, which is a good thing:  it means I was practising.  And when I reached the end of BEAUTY it was like, well, okay, you keep saying you want to be a writer, you have here a novel-shaped object, hadn’t you better go through the motions of sending it to a publisher?  If I’d waited for confidence I’d even now be looking forward to my retirement after forty-five years of being a truck driver or a cleaning lady.  Truck driver or cleaning lady because I’d still be writing:  I’m a writer.  I’m the kind of storyteller who writes stuff down, and I didn’t want a career that might distract me.*** The term ‘published’ is a real-world gloss on the basic fact and may or may not have anything to do with whether a writer/storyteller is any good, or whether she is earning a living at it or not.  If you’re a writer, you write.  If you want to be a writer, you do have to write. †  And at some point, if you want to try for publication, you have to shove yourself and all your demons over the tipping point, and get on with it.  Sorry.  There’s no fairy dust option available.

I just wanted to thank you for your marvelous books.

Thank you!

I love them, especially Beauty and Sunshine. ††. . . Beauty is my favorite book and has been since I was in 6th grade. My copy is the most battered book that I own, though I bought it new. . . . . Reading it always makes me wish I had a rose garden of my own . . .  the first rose I hope to have is a fragrant deep scarlet. . . . What is your favorite rose?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.  Um.  How long do you have?

Please do not be offended if I hope that they never try to turn your stories into movies.   Not only would it be difficult to duplicate what your words  evoke in describing the physical settings,  it could not be possible to find anyone able to turn themselves into the people you have brought to life within your novels.

Offended?  I couldn’t agree more.  (And thank you!)  I admit I wish people bought options a little more often, I could use the money.  But I positively don’t want any of my books to make it through the great pulverising industry process to become a film.  Shudder.  Although Peter has a point when he says that the trick is to hope or, if anyone asks you, which they won’t because no one pays any attention to writers, to encourage the TV or film maker to change as much as possible so no one would ever confuse the moving-pictures thing with your book.  Although I feel there are still limits to this approach.  I’ve told you before that I dreamed once—decades ago, but it’s a memory that lingers—that Spielberg really was turning BLUE SWORD into a movie, and the very first thing he did was make Harry a boy.   The dream did not specify what happened with/to Corlath.

I just discovered your blog last week.  It’s awesome to see you embrace your crankiness . . .

THANK YOU. 

* * *

* ‘Holiday’ is relative when you have two children under five.

** Joyce DiDonato’s, say.  Siiiiiiiigh.

*** There are writers who are also tinkers and tailors and soldiers and spies.  I wouldn’t have been one of them.

† And yes, I remind myself of this a lot when I’m making myself practise singing.  Good, bad and economically viable or not come later.  If you want to be a singer, you have to sing.  So I have more sympathy than you might expect for writers who will never be much good and will never earn much if any money at it.  Yes.  I get it.  I’m that kind of singer.

††I  received a really lovely, long, thoughtful, perceptive, intelligent letter from a reader recently.  Who then blew it all out of the water by saying that while she’s a big fan of all my other books she didn’t like SUNSHINE because she doesn’t like vampires.  Why do people feel the need to say things like this?  SUNSHINE, with vampires, sex and bad language is both one of my most popular books and also the one that gets the most stick—but it is far from alone in getting whacked for not being the book the reader wanted to read.  The face-off between BEAUTY and ROSE DAUGHTER also gets a lot of email time.  I really like BEAUTY but ROSE DAUGHTER is too weird and complicated, I never figured out what was going on.^  BEAUTY is childish and simplistic and I wasn’t going to read any more of your books but a friend gave me ROSE DAUGHTER and it’s great.  CHALICE is too short.  SPINDLE’S END is too long.  CHALICE is your best book because it doesn’t go on and on and on, I never finished SPINDLE’S END because it did.

I still receive the occasional you-have-betrayed-your-audience letter about DRAGONHAVEN because it’s narrated by a boy not a girl, and here whoever is writing me about it were trusting me because of all the other Girls Who Do Things stories I’ve written, and of course DEERSKIN betrays my audience of little soap-bubble-dwellers because it engages with the r word.^^  SWORD is some letter-writer’s favourite book ever—while HERO promotes adultery and that it won the Newbery is shocking and offensive. 

This latest letter writer is not unusual, although her letter is longer and more detailed than most, and I would have expected someone capable of some of her other insights to realise ‘I like novels x, y and z but a sucks dead bears’ is a crummy thing to say to a storyteller.  What a great dinner, everything was really good except the peach pie because I don’t like peaches.  Hey, you’re a really good friend, you’re a really important part of my life, you’re one of the people I know I could phone in the middle of the night if I was in trouble but you have a really awful laugh, it’s like a donkey braying.  You’ve got four great kids, but I don’t like the fifth because I don’t like red hair.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:  honesty is overrated.  ‘I’m only telling the truth’ is no excuse.  If there is no overwhelming reason for being unkind or tactless, shut up.

^ Hint:  you’re not supposed to.  The stories don’t match up.

^^ Rape.  Which happens, you know?  It’s not a figment of my sick twisted imagination.  Sweetness and light are not guaranteed when you pick up a work of fiction, fantasy fiction, or even fantasy fiction by Robin McKinley.  Deal with it.